


bells

by saltsanford



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Missing Scene, Post-Season/Series 03, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season 3 Spoilers, background Carmen/Johnny, background Sam/Miguel, cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:15:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28680933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltsanford/pseuds/saltsanford
Summary: Johnny lists dangerously to the right and Daniel pulls him closer, tugs Johnny’s left arm over his shoulder. He feels Johnny startle a little at the gesture, at the kind of carefulness that is very much not them, but Daniel doesn’t care. Something in him has cracked open, a red rage he’s never felt this intensely before thrumming hot through his veins. He wants to scream; he wants to grab everyone he cares about and shove them under his arm or behind his back; he wants to march back into that dojo and make sure Kreese never hurts what’s his ever again.Missing moment from 3x10, immediately after the final fight.
Relationships: Daniel LaRusso & Johnny Lawrence, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 54
Kudos: 168





	bells

They barely make it to the cars before Johnny collapses.

Daniel knows Johnny won’t actually call it collapsing—and it isn’t really, because Daniel catches his arm on the way down, prevents his heavy stumble from becoming a face-plant onto the pavement. “Whoa, whoa. Alright there?”

“Fine,” rasps Johnny, sounding very much the opposite. “I—”

Johnny lists dangerously to the right and Daniel pulls him closer, tugs Johnny’s left arm over his shoulder. He feels Johnny startle a little at the gesture, at the kind of carefulness that is very much not them, but Daniel doesn’t care. Something in him has cracked open, a red rage he’s never felt this intensely before thrumming hot through his veins. He wants to scream; he wants to grab everyone he cares about and shove them under his arm or behind his back; he wants to march back into that dojo and make sure Kreese never hurts what’s his ever again.

“Yeah,” is all he says to Johnny. “You look fine.”

Some of what he’s feeling must spill over into his voice, because Johnny gives him a side-eyed glance that Daniel does not return. He can’t imagine the expression that’s currently on his own face.

“Sensei?” Miguel appears in front of them, frowning into Johnny’s face. “What happened in there? Maybe you should go to the hospital.”

Johnny waves a hand that, instead of looking coolly dismissive as he likely intended, just sort of flops back down to his side. “No, no.”

“Probably not a bad idea, Johnny,” says Daniel. Lord only knows how long that fight had been going on before he had arrived.

Before he had almost been too late.

“Maybe you should _both_ go to a hospital,” says Sam. She folds her arms, eyes flicking suspiciously between them. “I mean, did he throw you through a _window,_ Dad?”

His daughter’s voice swims through the swelling ocean of anger and he holds tight to it, lets it anchor him. “I’m okay, Sam. Just a few scrapes.”

“You need to keep your feet in a fight,” mumbles Johnny. “That’s the second time I’ve watched someone pick your ass up. You weigh like, two pounds. Gotta ground yourself.”

The frown lines between Sam’s eyebrows deepen. “Wait, the second—?”

“Johnny,” Daniel grits out warningly, “just—leave it, alright?”

“Eh, I got a good move for that. We’ll work on it,” says Johnny, giving him a vague pat to the chest.

Daniel feels a weird warmth spread through him at those words, some combination of adrenaline and comfort and relief. They’re on the same side now, for real, and even though neither of them know exactly what that means yet, there’s a sense of rightness there. “Yeah, alright, sensei.”

The four of them glance at their cars, all three of them parked haphazardly in the strip mall lot. The door to Johnny’s is flung wide open; Sam’s still has the engine running.

“I don’t think either of you should drive,” says Sam, eyes still flicking worriedly between them.

“Well, I don’t think either of _you_ should drive,” says Daniel, taking in Sam’s bloody lip, Miguel’s bruised face. “All three of you probably have concussions.”

“Thrown through a window,” Sam reminds him.

“I didn’t hit my _head_ —”

“You’re bleedin’, though,” says Johnny. He tugs his arm from where Daniel’s slung it over his shoulder and swipes a hand across Daniel’s back, displaying bloodied fingers to the group like he’s presenting the winning evidence.

Sam immediately flits around to his back, drawing in a sharp breath. “Oh, Dad—”

The teary cadence to her voice sweeps the remaining rage from his mind. He takes his daughter’s shoulders in his hands, everything in him focusing to a single goal: get them out of here. “It’s alright, Sam. We’re all fine.”

Daniel hugs her and watches as Miguel puts a steadying hand on Johnny’s elbow. His chin is held high, shoulders steady and eyes clear, but Daniel can tell he’s just as upset as Sam.

His eyes meet Johnny’s, sees his own guilt mirrored there. “Let’s go,” says Daniel. “I’m driving, we’ll drop the two of you off. Sam, text your mom, let her know we’re all okay and that we’ll be home soon.”

Daniel makes the drive to Miguel’s in a heavy silence, broken only by the kids whispering in the backseat. Johnny’s got his eyes closed in the passenger seat, and Daniel shoves at his shoulder a little. “Uh uh, you probably have a concussion. You need to stay awake.”

“M’not the one who go tossed onto the fucking pavement like a rag doll,” Johnny mutters, but he forces his eyes open and rolls his head to face Daniel.

“I’m not the one who almost got my windpipe crushed,” Daniel grits out.

Miguel leans forward between their seats in alarm. “You almost _what?_ ”

“Diaz, I’m fine,” says Johnny, pushing him half-heartedly into the backseat.

“Okay, I’m officially banning the word fine for the rest of the night,” says Sam. “Got it?”

They all settle back into disgruntled silence until Johnny and Miguel’s apartment complex comes into view. Daniel grips the steering wheel, waging a brief internal war on whether or not he should just drive home with Sam or go inside for a while. Sam settles it for him when she gets out of the car, threading her fingers through Miguel’s.

“Guess that’s back on,” says Johnny, squinting at them through the dashboard window as the kids walk into Miguel’s house.

“I guess it is,” says Daniel. “He’s a good kid. Miguel.”

“Yeah, I know that, LaRusso,” says Johnny, but his voice lacks its usual heat.

Neither of them make any move to get out of the car, the silence between them weighted but not uncomfortable. Daniel thinks he should say something, anything, but he has no idea where to start. They have nothing to say to each other. They have everything to say to each other.

“The other kids alright?”

Daniel glances up in time to watch Johnny’s head roll to the side again to look at him. “Yeah. Some of them got pretty banged up, but they’re okay. The house is a mess, broken glass everywhere, but that’s the least of my worries.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

“What were they even all _doing_ there?” Johnny asks after a moment. His voice is still raspy, but he sounds a little more lucid than he had in the parking lot. “The kids from both our dojos, I mean.”

“I have no idea,” says Daniel, even though he has an inkling. “But Sam said they were fighting on the same side.”

The overhead car light flicks off and plunges the interior into darkness. Still neither of them move.

“Robby,” Johnny says finally, so quiet Daniel almost misses it. “ _Fuck._ ”

“Robby,” Daniel agrees. The red rage is starting to simmer once more, at the memory of Robby in that Cobra Kai gi, sprawled out on the dojo floor. At the sight of Kreese’s hand on his shoulder, on _his student_ _’s_ shoulder—

“He was fighting me, and…” Johnny blows out a breath, head thunking once, twice against the back of the car seat. “I was just trying to stop him, but I fucked it up. Again.”

“Hey,” says Daniel, “listen. We’re going to get Robby away from that lunatic, and we’re going to win the tournament.”

The _we_ hangs heavy in the space between them, electric like the air moments before a summer storm, but still neither of them moves to bring the rain down. The anger swims through Daniel, thick and heavy, beginning a steady pounding in his head. “For a moment there, I almost…I thought I was going to kill him. Kreese,” he clarifies, as if Johnny doesn’t know who he’s talking about, as if Johnny wasn’t about to help him do it.

His voice comes out as a thready whisper, but it’s easier like this, in the soft quiet of the dark. Guilt is beginning to seep through the cracks in his rage, whispering that Mr. Miyagi wouldn’t want to see him like this, but still the red thing inside him is howling for more.

“I know.”

He looks at Johnny, who meets his gaze steadily, eyes glittering. “He’s the reason all those kids got hurt,” says Daniel, consumed by a sudden need to explain, to leech the truth of that evening out like poison. “He—shit, Johnny, he was trying to _kill_ you when I walked in. He tried to kill _me_ —told me I was going to reunite with Mr. Miyagi—”

His voice cracks and he breaks off, embarrassed and overwhelmed. “He said that?” Johnny asks, and Daniel can only nod.

Johnny leans forward suddenly, head in his hands, and for one horrifying moment Daniel thinks he’s crying—

Until a snort escapes him, and Daniel realizes that no, he’s _laughing_. “Have you lost your mind?”

Johnny snorts again into his hands. “Sorry,” he gasps. “It’s just—it’s just—he really said that, huh? ‘It’s time for you to join Miyagi’—is he some kind of fucking supervillain—”

He breaks off with a giggle, an actual giggle, and Daniel finds the corners of his own mouth lifting up in a grin. “I think he practiced that line in the mirror.”

Johnny throws back his head and laughs, really laughs in a way Daniel’s never heard. Before he knows it, Daniel’s laughing too, the sound bubbling past his lips in an uncontrollable, endless stream. “Daniel,” Johnny wheezes, slapping at his shoulder, “we both almost died tonight!”

Daniel laughs even harder, clutches at Johnny’s arm. “He—he was going to stab me! With a piece of glass! From the window he threw me into!”

“He tried to choke me! _Choke_ me! _Again!_ ”

It’s too much. Daniel slaps the steering wheel; Johnny knocks his head against the dashboard and they laugh and laugh and laugh. He’s still gripping Johnny’s arm and realizes Johnny’s holding his shoulder just as tightly, their fingers both clenched hard enough to bruise. It feels like Johnny’s the only thing tethering him to earth, and if he lets go, the red thing in his mind will snap clean in two. “ _Actually_ almost died,” Daniel wheezes, and he’s laughing so hard he thinks he’s going to die again, that he and Johnny are going to drop dead right here in this car—

The driver’s side door whips open, to reveal Sam and Miguel standing there looking at them as if they’ve lost their minds. “Are you guys okay?” Miguel asks incredulously.

“No,” says Johnny, and that sets them off all over again.

Sam and Miguel exchange a baffled look. “You’re going to freak out Miguel’s mom,” Sam hisses. “Come on, she wants to look at Johnny.”

Right. Carmen’s a nurse—X-ray technician? It’s probably the second best thing to a hospital and Daniel sobers up at once. “Right. Good idea. Come on, John.”

Johnny hiccups himself into silence, and the two of them climb out of the car to follow the kids inside. Daniel pushes the anger down to a simmer, pulls his focus up tight around himself. He needs to make sure everyone is okay. He needs to figure out how to protect the kids. He needs to help Amanda clean the house up. He needs—

Daniel glances at Johnny out of the corner of his eye, things unspoken still swimming in the air between them.

He needs to figure out just how they’re going to _do_ this.

* * *

This, Johnny thinks, is so fucking weird.

He’s been in more fights than he could possibly ever count in his lifetime. By now, he’s got his post-fight routine down _solid_ : a shower and lots of band-aids, plenty of ice and cold beer, followed by a glorious ten hours of unbroken sleep. He’s used to the aches and pains. He knows how to manage the dizziness. He can handle the blood.

Johnny doesn’t know if he can handle _this._ The Diaz’s apartment may as well be LAX with how many fucking people are crammed in here, all of them staring at him, all of them bizarrely concerned. He feels exposed, vulnerable in a way he’s never quite felt before. The last time he’d had people around after a fight was with his buddies the night Tommy died and before that? No clue. High school, probably.

He’s supposed to do this part alone. He’s _used_ to doing this part alone.

But he’s got people here now. Carmen, methodically laying out her little med-kit and Rosa, forcing him to drink a second glass of water. Sam had bossily made him down the second they got inside and Miguel had insisted on helping him to the couch. Even Daniel is hovering, and had given Carmen what Johnny thinks was an entirely too detailed account of the fight.

It’s fucking _weird,_ all these people here.

It’s also—maybe—a little bit nice.

“So that man tried to strangle you?”

Johnny shoves the weirdness down, makes himself meet Carmen’s eyes. “Yeah. He was—”

“It wasn’t a strangle,” interrupts Daniel, from where he’s insisted on looming over Carmen’s shoulder. “A strangle is when the blood flow is restricted to the brain. Kreese was choking him.”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “We all know the difference between a strangle and a choke, LaRusso.”

“He was crushing his windpipe,” Daniel continues, undaunted even as Johnny glares at him. “I still think he might need a hospital.”

The sheer fucking nerve. “Seriously?”

Daniel just smiles, syrup sweet and insufferable as always. “I’m not lying to your girlfriend for you.”

“Funny,” says Johnny. “Real funny.”

The corners of Carmen’s mouth twitch up in a smile, but she sobers immediately. “How long was he choking you for?”

“I don’t know, ten seconds? Fifteen? It doesn’t even hurt,” says Johnny, which is kind of true, although he suspects that might be the adrenaline. “I—”

Carmen’s fingers gently press into the sides of his neck and he flinches hard away from her touch, pulse spiking. She pulls back at once and Johnny flushes, mortified. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

“It’s alright,” says Carmen. “Tilt your chin up for me?”

Johnny wills the pounding of his heart to slow, furious at himself. This—this is absolutely not going to become a thing, _again._ It had taken him years after the eighty-four All Valley to be able to work strangle and choke-holds without flinching. It was stupid then and it’s even stupider now. So Kreese had tried to choke him. So what? So he’s gonna freeze up every time someone touches his neck? _Fuck_ that, he doesn’t have time for this shit—

“So how did you know to go to Cobra Kai?”

Daniel’s voice cuts through Johnny’s furious internal pep talk, burns away some of the foggy panic clouding his brain. Johnny flicks his eyes over to where he’s standing, arms crossed just behind Carmen’s shoulder. He knows at once what Daniel’s trying to do. Johnny can’t decide if he’s weirdly touched or irritated out of his mind, so he settles for a mixture of both. “I don’t need you to try and distract me, man. I’m not a little kid. I’m fine.”

“No one’s fine,” calls Sam, from where she and Miguel have taken refuge in the kitchen. “I banned that word, remember?”

The kid is relentless, Johnny will give her that. He resists the urge to stick his tongue out at her and narrows his eyes at Daniel instead. “You know what I mean.”

“I’m not trying to distract you,” says Daniel with a shrug. “I’m asking you a question. Trying to get all the information, piece together what happened.”

He’s playing dumb, but Johnny lets him, if only because he’s tired. “Miguel. I saw he was bloodied up and lost my fucking mind.”

“You and me both,” says Daniel darkly. “Amanda and I got home—house covered in broken glass, banged-up kids everywhere. Unbelievable.”

“That man is a lunatic,” says Carmen. She’s got one of those stethoscope things out now. “I’m going to put this on your back, Johnny—breathe deep for me?”

“He’s a complete sociopath,” Daniel agrees, “and we’re going to stop him.”

“Can’t you got to the police?”

Johnny focuses on breathing deep as Carmen moves the stethoscope from his back to his chest. “We tried,” says Daniel, and he launches into the whole story about Amanda and the restraining order, most of which Johnny had already figured out except for—

“Wait, she _hit_ him? For real?”

“She hit him,” Daniel confirms grimly.

“Badass,” says Johnny, though Daniel doesn’t look very happy. Johnny doesn’t know Amanda all that well, but she’s a cool chick and upon second thought, he sure as shit doesn’t want her anywhere near Kreese either. “You told her that’s a bad idea though, right?”

“Of course I did.”

Johnny nods, eyes Carmen. “Don’t _you_ go getting any ideas, either.”

“I make no promises,” says Carmen, a deep steel in her voice that Johnny doesn’t like one bit.

“I mean it,” says Johnny. He catches her wrist, tugs her gently down to eye level. “Kreese is out of his mind. I don’t want you going anywhere near him.”

“Well, I don’t want him or his students going anywhere near my family or people I care about, and yet that seems to keep happening. I’m not afraid of him.”

She’s not. Johnny can see it at once in the hard lines of her face, the darkening bronze of her eyes. He absolutely would not put it past her to storm into that dojo. “Carmen.”

“Johnny.”

“Johnny’s right,” says Daniel, and Johnny’s eyebrows almost levitate off of his forehead. “Besides, we’ve got a plan.”

“Dare I ask what that is? Swallow, Johnny, I’m going to touch your neck.”

He swallows obediently while Daniel’s gaze flicks to Sam and Miguel, talking quietly together in the kitchen.

“The tournament,” says Daniel, and Carmen’s hands fall away from Johnny’s neck in exasperation.

“The tournament. You really think that’s going to work?”

“It’s worked before,” says Daniel. “Believe me, it’s a language Kreese understands. It’s gotten him and his students off my back twice before.”

Carmen doesn’t look convinced, but she just sighs and focuses on Johnny. “Johnny, I’m sorry, but I really think you should go to the hospital.”

It takes a minute for her words to register, so focused is he on trying to catch Daniel’s gaze and finally get an answer to what the hell happened at the tournament in eighty-five. Daniel’s deliberately avoiding eye contact and after a moment, Carmen’s words sink in. “Wait, what? No way, its not that bad.”

“You experienced severe trauma to your trachea,” she says, undaunted .”I don’t like this bruising or how your voice sounds—”

“I was in a fight, of course I sound like shit—”

“You could have a tracheal fracture—”

“It wasn’t even that bad—”

“Yes, it was,” Daniel interrupts. Johnny’s going to kill him. “Well, it was! Do you want to lose the ability to eat or something because your windpipe collapses?”

Johnny pauses, looks at Carmen. “Could that happen?”

“Yes,” she says emphatically. “If it’s severe enough. I take X-rays for a living, Johnny. I would feel much better if you got one.”

“Ugh.” Johnny drops his head back onto the couch. “Can’t I just ice it?”

“That would be a good start,” says Carmen. “There’s a few ice packs in the freezer. I keep them ready made, these days.”

He doesn’t think she means it as a jab, but guilt settles heavily in the pit of his stomach anyway. “Thanks,” he mutters, then heaves himself to a stand. “You’re up, LaRusso.”

Johnny lets Daniel take his place on the couch and heads to the refrigerator. Miguel beats him to it, holding out the ice pack with a guilty look on his face. “You didn’t have to go over to Cobra Kai, sensei.”

“Yes, I did,” says Johnny. He slaps the ice pack against his neck with a wince. “The question is, what the hell were you two doing over there?”

“We came to help you guys,” says Miguel, and Sam nods fiercely in agreement. “I texted Sam once you left, and she told Mr. LaRusso where you went. He went after you, and we went after him—we didn’t know what you guys were walking into—”

“No,” says Johnny. These kids are going to be the death of him. “You’re not going over to that dojo ever again, you hear me? Either of you— _any_ of you. I don’t want you within ten blocks of Kreese. He won’t hesitate to hurt you just because you’re kids—”

He breaks off, the knot of guilt in his stomach tightening. _His_ kid is over there, right now, being told god knows what by his old piece of shit sensei. How, how had he let this happen? Johnny thinks of the anguish on Robby’s face, of the smug satisfaction on Kreese’s and he _can_ _’t._ He’s going to lose his mind just thinking about it.

Daniel’s right. They’re going to save Robby. Any other option is unthinkable.

Johnny glances over at Daniel, who is reluctantly shrugging off his torn dress-shirt while Carmen squints at a nasty looking gash on the back of his shoulder. She’s holding up a little flashlight in one hand and a pair of tweezers in the other and Daniel’s grimacing, hands clenched into fists atop his knees.

Johnny sighs and stands, figuring that since Daniel tried to help ground him or whatever when it was Johnny’s turn in the hot seat—even though he totally didn’t need it—then Johnny should probably return the favor if need be. “I mean it,” he says sternly to Sam and Miguel. “No going over to Cobra Kai. Tell all your friends.”

Sam in particular looks as if she’s got several things to say in response to that, but Johnny just heads back into the living room and holds his hand out to Carmen. “Gimme the flashlight, I’ll hold it.”

She hands it over and Johnny winces at the sight of Daniel’s shoulder. “Christ, that looks bad.”

“Johnny,” Carmen says warningly.

“Sorry. It does, though,” says Johnny, and given that Daniel’s facial expression immediately morphs from freaked out to irritated, he’s gonna call that one a win.

“It’s mostly superficial,” says Carmen. “Most of these won’t even scar, but I do need to get the glass out.”

“There’s glass in there?” Daniel asks in alarm, craning his neck as if he’s going to be able to see.

Johnny shoves his head to face forward again. “Let her work, genius. And hold still.”

He keeps the ice pack pressed to his throat with one hand and holds the flashlight steady while Carmen works. There are a myriad of slices on Daniel’s upper back and shoulders, but the only ones that look particularly nasty are the ones on his shoulder and face. Even these, Carmen says, won’t need stitches.

“So what, I have to go to the hospital and he doesn’t?” Johnny grumps, as she carefully bandages Daniel’s shoulder.

“That’s right.”

He sighs but doesn’t argue the point, just flops onto the couch next to Daniel as he shrugs his shirt back on and Carmen removes her gloves. They sit there in silence once more as Carmen and Rosa pack up the medical supplies, as Sam and Miguel continue to whisper together in the kitchen. Maybe he can at least convince Carmen to hold off on this hospital field trip until tomorrow, at which point he can prove just how much better he’s feeling.

The weird, expectant tension that’s been hovering between him and Daniel all night thickens the longer they sit in silence. A part of Johnny wants to get up, put some distance between the two of them, say something that will piss Daniel off and snap this tremulous thing binding them together, but—

But the largest part of him doesn’t want to push Daniel away, and the truest part doesn’t want to be alone right now. Sue him, he’s too tired to pretend otherwise and he almost died tonight.

He almost fucking _died._

“You know what they want, right?” Daniel says suddenly.

“Huh?”

“The kids,” says Daniel. He jerks his head towards Sam and Miguel. “From…both our dojos .They were fighting _together,_ against Cobra Kai. You know what they were meeting about before the fight.”

Johnny rolls the bag of ice between his fingers, letting it flop into his lap. “Yeah,” he says finally. “I think so.”

He makes himself look at Daniel, who’s wearing the same expression he’s been wearing ever since the fight. There’s fear in his eyes, and anger, but there’s also a steadiness Johnny’s only seen once before, when they stood across from each other on sweat-slick mats over three decades ago.

There’s something expectant, too. Johnny once more feels the urge to say something snarky or cruel, something that will make the moment feel less weighted, but he can’t quite do it. He— _they—_ both almost died.

Daniel saved his _life._

Johnny forces himself to hold Daniel’s gaze, to sit with the weight of the moment. There’s thirty years of history swirling around them like ghosts, beginning with a broken radio on the beach and coming to a screaming halt here on this couch, the two of them bruised and bloodied and fucking terrified, but far, far from beaten.

He thinks of _we,_ thinks of _you keep your Cobra Kais away from our kids._

“So, what?” Johnny says finally. “You’re saying…what?”

“I don’t know,” Daniel sighs, and just like that the moment’s passed—not lessened, not gone, but behind them, a thing acknowledged that they can never un-acknowledge again.

The question is, where do they go from here? How do they name it?

Hell if Johnny knows.

He looks at Daniel helplessly, who looks just as lost, and they grin at each other a little. “Well, look,” says Daniel. “Carmen’s right, you should go to the hospital. Can I call you tomorrow?”

“I don’t have a phone.”

A familiar look of exasperation flickers across Daniel’s face as he stands, grabbing his keys. “Johnny. Get a phone. And call me. Alright?”

“Wait,” says Johnny, and he grabs Daniel’s wrist without thinking, dropping it the moment Daniel turns to face him in surprise. “Uh. Thanks.”

Daniel frowns a little. “For what?”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “Seriously? Don’t be an idiot. You, uh. Kind of saved my life, so. Thanks.”

“Oh,” says Daniel, and he looks, of all things, guilty. “I was almost too late.”

“Well, you weren’t,” Johnny says impatiently, “so just take the thank you, alright? Don’t be weird about it.”

“Alright,” says Daniel. “You’re welcome. Better?”

“Better.”

Johnny stands as they leave, pats Sam’s shoulder as she filters out after her father. He stands at the doorway with Miguel, slings his arm over the kid’s shoulder and holds him close as the night swallows Sam and Daniel whole.

* * *

Johnny fidgets at the doorway of the LaRusso house the next morning. Even now, after everything that’s happened, even though he’s mostly sure Daniel isn’t going to tell him to get the hell out, he’s nervous. Old habits, or maybe it’s the thought of putting all of those unspoken things into spoken ones.

Of ringing another bell, that they can never un-ring.

“Sensei?” Miguel’s voice cuts through his thoughts. “Are you, uh. Going to ring the doorbell?”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Johnny, and sets off the chimes inside the house.

Daniel answers almost immediately, looking as if he hasn’t slept a wink. “Johnny? What…”

He trails off as he opens the door wider, taking in the sight of Miguel, of Bert, of all of the Eagle Fang kids gathered behind Johnny, armed with brooms and trash bags, windex and swifer pads. It had been Miguel’s idea, to come over first thing to help the LaRussos clean up, and as Daniel’s jaw tightens, Johnny's immediately knows it was the right move.

“Alright,” says Johnny, and Daniel looks at him. “Let’s talk."

**Author's Note:**

> that finale added 20 years onto my lifespan holy shit
> 
> (i am on tumblr at [saltsanford](https://saltsanford.tumblr.com/) and ready to SHRIEK about this show, none of my fandom besties watch this karate soap opera HELP ME)


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